York Festival Kicks Off For 2024

Friday night signals the beginning of this year’s York Festival, a celebration of music, theatre, and community held across two weekends in Western Australia’s oldest inland town.

Held on Ballardong Noongar country in the midst of wildflower season, the event is backdropped not only by historic buildings but the incredible landscape of the Wheatbelt region.

This year marks the festival’s eighth, and its Director, Jenny Garroun, says it’s only continuing to grow.

“We continue to expand the scope of our festival year on year as more people come on board to support us while letting go of things that we try that don’t really fit with our vision,” explains Garroun. “We are honing our focus to more art, music and activities for the locals and hope to offer something different each year while still keeping the festival attractive and interesting.”

The festival is trialling a new ticketing structure this year, allowing people to buy tickets for a day or a weekend instead of the previous system of requiring tickets for individual events. And what a range of events there are.

Wundig We Wilura is this year’s feature event, kicking off opening night with a Noongar Dreamtime (Nyitting) story in collaboration with the West Australian Opera.

Garroun summarises that the story is “about the two big hills in York – Wongeborel and Walwalling.”

“It is sung in Noongar language, and tells the story of two star-crossed lovers defying lore and custom and the consequences of their forbidden love. The music was written by Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse and is simply stunning.”

Other musical showcases include an array of jazz acts arranged by the Perth International Jazz Festival, whose director, Dr Mace Francis, has a “long association with York.” 

“Dr Francis has curated a range of exceptional local WA performers, very talented players like vocalist Holli Scott, father-son guitar and bass duo Kim and Sam Anning, a piano, bass and drums trio with Austin Salisbury – we are even included as a stop on folk singer extraordinaire Melody Pool’s world tour!”

Garroun confesses a highlight will be “enjoying a wine or two at our intimate garden shows at the Imperial and the Rookery over the weekends of the festival.”

Apart from the jazz, “[The] Silver Sands Guitar Quartet will be doing a performance in the Trinity Church with beautiful modern renditions of classic pieces, and Simon Charles, our very own local experimental composer, is collaborating with poet John Kinsella to present Visceral Fragments – a spoken word and contemporary classical piece that makes for very intricate listening.”

If you get tired of intricate listening, there are intricate arts and crafts to partake in. Offerings include multiple workshops, including paper parasol painting and interactive ventures such as light painting, a silent disco, and a virtual art gallery. Theatre and dance performances are also set to take place in assorted historic buildings across the town’s centre.

On curating this year’s line-up, Garroun says the York Festival team was “honoured and grateful to work with the Elders of this country towards reconciliation and present the rich Ballardong Noongar culture of this region for everyone to learn about and enjoy. Providing a platform for Ballardong Noongar stories to be told through art and performance is an underlying value for York Festival, in addition to our other programming.

“Our work with the local Ballardong Noongar community really completes the story of York, adding important background to the very up-front colonial history of WA’s first inland town.”

“We also like to balance our offerings so that we not only tell the stories of York to visitors from the surrounding regions and the city but so that our local community can experience events they might not get to see without travelling to Perth.”

Focus on community connection and involvement remains essential for Garroun and the festival, especially as they look to ensure its continued vitality for years to come.

“I have to acknowledge that we ask a lot of the locals with so many visitors coming through, but we hope the lovingly curated experiences are worth it for them, and we’ll keep doing it as long as people keep enjoying it!”

York Festival runs from Friday, September 20, to Sunday, September 29. The website has more information and tickets.